1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer networks. In particular, the invention relates to data buffering in computer networks.
2. Description of Related Art
Demand in high speed data transmission has given rise to many broadband network protocols and standards. For example, the Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) has a number of clock speeds used in Wide Area Network (WAN) with bandwidth requirement ranging from megabits per second (Mbps) to several gigabits per second (Gbps). Popular standards include OC-3c (155 Mbps), OC-12c (622 Mbps), OC-48c (2.5 Gbps), OC-192c (10 Gbps), OC-768c (40 Gbps), etc.
In network applications, data are transmitted in variable-length packets at unpredictable time in real-time and therefore cannot be reliably cached. At a transmission rate of several Gbps, the buffering of network data (e.g., transient data) becomes a technical challenge because the bandwidth growth of semi conductor memories has not kept pace with network transmission bandwidth.
Therefore, there is a need to have an efficient technique to buffer data, (e.g., transient data) in network and other data transmission applications.